A Strategy for Deployment of Thorium and U233 (In Italy)

Thorium is an unavoidable nuclear fuel generator and a gigantic energy source, should nuclear technology become a strategy for the electricity production in regions like EU or in Countries like Italy. The history of the exploitation of thorium in nuclear technology provides a number of dead-end endeavors; at the same time, a large number of initiatives and ideas are fluorescent in various parts of the world dealing with the deployment of thorium as nuclear fuel. After examining the history and the current trends, the present paper deals with a dream project (for Italy): the 233U extracted from a thorium breeder reactor is stored to constitute an energy deposit, suitable for decades energy consumption, which has the potential to make stable the energy market, without targeting electricity production in the Country. Three topics touched in the paper are: a) 233U generation details; b) chemical separation of fissile and fertile materials; c) challenges for a nuclear reactor to produce electricity, desalinated water and fissile material, simultaneously.